Maersk hopes drones can deliver sweet savings

Shipping giant Maersk Group made headlines earlier this year when it used a drone to deliver a bucket of cookies to a tanker at sea. That was just the beginning of an effort the company thinks could dramatically change its business. The company is evaluating ways to expand its use of drones and plans a bigger test later this year, said Markus Kuhn, a supply chain manager at Maersk, at the Drones Data X conference in San Francisco. In January, the company made a drone fly 250 meters from one of its barges to a tanker and drop off a batch of cookies. It's now looking for a drone-making partner for a test flight that would haul a 10-kilogram package for 10 kilometers. That test would illustrate a key use case for Maersk, that of resupplying its fleet of tankers, oil platforms, container ships and other craft.